My Story
I grew up on the banks of the Zambezi River and most of my childhood was spent climbing trees and chasing elephants out of my garden. This unique childhood has been the fuel for my adventurous ambition and the African memories will remain with me forever.
Cycling around the world as fast as possible was once a crazy idea that no-one thought was worth doing mainly because you travel around the entire world and barely get to see more than the type of road surfaces each country has to offer. Things changed in 2008 when Mark Beaumont broke the record by a whopping 3 months. This then opened the floodgates for adventure cyclist to have a go. His record of 195 days is now down at 163 days by Vin Cox. On completing his record ride, Vin decided to create an event which would attract the world's toughest adventurers - the global bike race was born.
Cycling the Earth is way more than being able to cycle the fastest. The logistics involved and route planning has a major impact on the acquiring the record. I want this challenge to be the hardest thing I ever do and if I am not eating or sleeping then I need to be cycling.
To illustrate just what a huge challenge this is, here are some interesting facts (well I think they are) about the effort I am going to have to put in.
- My legs will do about 7 million rotations each.
- To break the world record I will need to average at least 112miles for 162 days.
- I will eat and drink my entire body weight every 2 weeks.
- On some days I will burn the equivalent of 67 Mars bars worth of calories.
- I will be creating enough electricity to power a laptop at work for 2 years.
- I will cycle in four months what the average cycle commuter cycles in 3 years.
Why do I want to be the future world record holder?
Adventure is in my blood. Growing up in the heartland of the African wilderness has meant I have always strived to challenge myself both mentally and physically. It was February 2011 and I had just finished climbing Kilimanjaro dressed in a penguin and wanted to do something BIG. I have always wanted to swim the English Channel and Cycle the Earth so on a random weekend after mentioning it to my friends and family (who on the most part just shrugged their shoulders as if it was a normal thing for me to do) I decided to commit. I hadn't heard about the global bike race but once finding out about it there was no doubt I was going to move my attempt a few months back to participate. This is truly going to be the toughest race on earth and I can't wait.